New Meaning to “On-the-Job” Training: AR + Smart Glasses Potential to Turbo-Charge Training

The Competency Challenge

Many industries are facing serious challenges in maintaining a competent workforce. Recently, I attended a conference where a speaker cited the crisis a major utility company will face when a huge portion of its workforce retires due to aging baby boomers. Years of experience will evaporate from the company’s field service team, and the challenge of hiring and training new personnel is enormous.

Likewise, other industries face challenges maintaining competent workforces due to frequent product revisions, continued innovation, process changes, and the concomitant shorter product life cycles. 

Employee training is one way to mitigate these challenges, but it has its own pitfalls. Studies have cited the “dirty secret” of training in that students forget a whopping 70 percent of what is taught within twenty-four hours of a training event!

The good news is that rapidly evolving technologies are poised to overcome this challenge and transform the way enterprises train their workforces. The combination of smart glasses and augmented reality (AR) applications is uniquely suited to reach the goal of optimal on-the-job performance for field service, manufacturing, and other desk-less professional roles. One of the key reasons is the power of this new technology to deliver effective, just-in-time, on-the-job training when it is needed most—at the point of application when an individual is called upon to perform. And unlike a handheld device, smart glasses enable you to remain hands-free and focused; you can think of them like a heads-up display for navigating the complexity of a service or manufacturing task.

The Race to Competency and Five Moments of Need

If training is a journey, then optimal and competent on-the-job performance is the destination. Ultimately, the goal is to bring personnel up to optimal performance levels in as short a time as possible. However, there is a training chasm where transferring training into successful on-the-job performance falls far short of the goal.  

An article in Learning Solutions magazine highlights training challenges: “Are You Meeting All Five Moments of Learning Need?” To paraphrase, the five moments of need for training include the following:

1. When people are learning something for the first time—New

2. When people are expanding what they have learned—More

3. When people need to use what they have learned to perform their job—Apply

4. When a problem arises such that troubleshooting is required—Solve

5. When there is a process change, and people need to change their skills—Change

The authors, Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher, highlight a core need of job performance support: the moment of Apply. This is when people need access to the tools or information that will help them perform their jobs competently. Apply is the moment of truth when individuals have to put newly acquired skills to work.  Apply is where the rubber meets the road; in the model shown below it lies at the center of training, serving the other four needs. This is where I believe Smart Glasses with AR can add tremendous value in reducing the time to effective on-the-job performance.

Smart Glass AR applications deliver on the other four moments of need, just in time, at the moment of Apply when an individual is called upon to act. It has the potential to transform training, enabling personnel to reach optimal performance levels in less time. It closes the training chasm, enabling individuals to get the help they need when they need it most—at the moment of application.

Smart Glasses and AR: Use Cases

Let’s take a look at how this would work in the real world. Consider the following use case scenarios:

New: A defense contractor introduces a helicopter model that requires a new calibration process for a flight control system. Aircraft technicians attend a course to learn this new process but weeks later have to use it in the field (remember the 70 percent loss in knowledge after training cited above). With a Smart Glass AR application this training is now supported and reinforced in the field. A technician performing the new calibration process can now access step-by-step instructions and videos to ensure the process is correctly performed while remaining hands-free. This on-the-job training reinforces this new skill and helps the individual retain this newly acquired knowledge. 

More: An aircraft manufacturer has added more connections to a complex wiring harness to support additional instrumentation. With a Smart Glass AR application, a manufacturing technician can now access the precise wiring harness configuration with a visual confirmation of the connections to ensure he or she has correctly configured the harness. 

Solve: A field service technician arrives at a service call for a complex piece of harvesting equipment. The equipment is working but is not able to attain full power. The technician performs the usual diagnostic process but is unable to determine a root cause. He is stumped and needs help fast because this is an over $.5 million machine, and every hour of down time is costly. Using a Smart Glass AR application, he is able to connect to a remote service expert 1,000 miles away who has in-depth engineering knowledge of the machine. Using a you-see-what-I-see capability leveraging the onboard camera of smart glasses, he is able to get the necessary coaching from the remote expert to quickly isolate the cause and locate a faulty solenoid that is causing reduced fuel flow. 

Change: A power generation manufacturer changes the assembly process for installing a control module for one of its generators. John, who has been with the company for more than fifteen years, has worked on this model numerous times but now must use a different process for this assembly step. Using a video animation that shows a 3D model of the installation, he can see a visual confirmation of the process using smart glasses and pause the animation at critical steps to confirm he is performing the installation correctly.

Although the above use cases are hypothetical, the real-world results of early pilots and production rollouts in field service and manufacturing by major corporations using Smart Glass AR applications are not. Many organizations have documented well over 30 percent improvement on key metrics that track error, productivity, and quality measures.

Training Transformed

The most important aspect of Smart Glass AR applications is the ability to deliver critical tactical information to mobile professionals where and when they need it while enabling them to remain hands free and focused on the job at hand. The sweet spot for this is at the critical moment of application—when an individual must apply what he or she has learned to their work. I believe Smart Glass AR applications accelerate training and enable enterprises to realize the goal of optimal on-the-job performance in less time with higher quality results. More importantly, organizations not only realize the benefits of lower error rates, greater productivity, and a more competent workforce but also enjoy a significant and positive impact on the bottom line as a result of these imrpovements.